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For those who are unfamiliar with the project, here are a few small photos of the custom-designed workstation based on an AMD bit-slice processor that the Obero

For those who are unfamiliar with the project, here are a few small photos of the custom-designed workstation based on an AMD bit-slice processor that the Oberon System ran on originally. http://www.ethistory.ethz.ch/rueckblicke/departemente/dinfk/forschung/weitere_seiten/lilith/index_EN/popupfriendly/ http://www.ethistory.ethz.ch/rueckblicke/departemente/dinfk/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(workstation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(workstation) Along with its predecessor Lilith, for running a Modula-2 system. There was even a Russian clone of the Lilith called Kronos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(computer) Along with Plan 9, I see this project as a starting point for a deep dive into a world of alternative computing platforms. (edited for spelling, bit-slice)

dboreham 9y ago
"bit-slice" (assuming a mobile OS mis-correction) If you're interested in that field, this is the book: https://www.oldcomputerbooks.com/pages/books/K6246/mick-john-mick-brick-james-brick-advanced-micro-devices/bit-slice-microprocessor-design https://www.oldcomputerbooks.com/pages/books/K6246/mick-john...
- michrassena 9y ago
  a bit of mistyping on my part... I don't know much about bit-slice processors. They seem like an interesting historical footnote at this point. Are there any current applications for the technology?
  - pkaye 9y ago
    Bit-slice processor is where the hardware blocks are partitioned along bit boundaries. For example combine 4 chips of 4-bit wide data path to form a 16-bit processor. This was from when chips were not dense enough to fit a whole processor into one die.
    - michrassena 9y ago
      After doing a tiny bit of reading, it seems in early minicomputer days bit-slice processors weren't an exotic technology at the time. I wonder why people didn't combine 16 chips to create 64-bit processors. Or did they?
      - kjs3 9y ago
        They did. The 64-bit floating point unit in many PDP-11s used 16 4-bit AM2901 bit-sliced processors. Also know that over time, 8-, 16- and 32-bit slices came along, so you didn't need as many chips to build wide-word machines.
      - Someone 9y ago
        Look at the years the CPUs mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_slicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_slicing were produced. That was not a time where there was demand for 64 bit processors (not surprisingly. RAM cost around $6000 per Megabyte in 1980, according to http://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm http://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm, so you would have to pay around $24 million to run out of space on a 32-bit CPU) Of course, 64 bit registers and less memory would have been useful for scientific computations. However, I think it is hard to build a fast integer multiplier from bit-sliced CPUs (you can, but by the time you are done, the CPU doesn’t look like a cascade of smaller width CPUs anymore). I would guess making floating point perform on bit sliced processors has its challenges, too.
      - pkaye 9y ago
        Probably cost and performance. When you string more of these chips together, the propagation delay increases which means your clock speed must be inversely.
      - dboreham 9y ago
        They did. That was the whole point. Most designs were 32-bit but there was nothing to stop you going to 64-bit, floating point etc etc.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
In that vein, the Atari Transputer with OCaam as its language was the ultimate alternative computing platform. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation
- michrassena 9y ago
  I knew that sounded familiar. There's a thread here from last year, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12995277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12995277 Includes some interesting stuff.
mark-r 9y ago
According to your links, the Oberon was based on a single-chip NS320xx processor, not bit-slice - that was its predecessor, the Lilith. By the time Oberon was started, bit-slice processors were obsolete. Integrated CPU chips were able to beat them on price, speed, size, and power consumption.

dboreham 9y ago

"bit-slice" (assuming a mobile OS mis-correction) If you're interested in that field, this is the book: https://www.oldcomputerbooks.com/pages/books/K6246/mick-john-mick-brick-james-brick-advanced-micro-devices/bit-slice-microprocessor-design https://www.oldcomputerbooks.com/pages/books/K6246/mick-john...

michrassena 9y ago
a bit of mistyping on my part... I don't know much about bit-slice processors. They seem like an interesting historical footnote at this point. Are there any current applications for the technology?
- pkaye 9y ago
  Bit-slice processor is where the hardware blocks are partitioned along bit boundaries. For example combine 4 chips of 4-bit wide data path to form a 16-bit processor. This was from when chips were not dense enough to fit a whole processor into one die.
  - michrassena 9y ago
    After doing a tiny bit of reading, it seems in early minicomputer days bit-slice processors weren't an exotic technology at the time. I wonder why people didn't combine 16 chips to create 64-bit processors. Or did they?
    - kjs3 9y ago
      They did. The 64-bit floating point unit in many PDP-11s used 16 4-bit AM2901 bit-sliced processors. Also know that over time, 8-, 16- and 32-bit slices came along, so you didn't need as many chips to build wide-word machines.
    - Someone 9y ago
      Look at the years the CPUs mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_slicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_slicing were produced. That was not a time where there was demand for 64 bit processors (not surprisingly. RAM cost around $6000 per Megabyte in 1980, according to http://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm http://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm, so you would have to pay around $24 million to run out of space on a 32-bit CPU) Of course, 64 bit registers and less memory would have been useful for scientific computations. However, I think it is hard to build a fast integer multiplier from bit-sliced CPUs (you can, but by the time you are done, the CPU doesn’t look like a cascade of smaller width CPUs anymore). I would guess making floating point perform on bit sliced processors has its challenges, too.
    - pkaye 9y ago
      Probably cost and performance. When you string more of these chips together, the propagation delay increases which means your clock speed must be inversely.
    - dboreham 9y ago
      They did. That was the whole point. Most designs were 32-bit but there was nothing to stop you going to 64-bit, floating point etc etc.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

In that vein, the Atari Transputer with OCaam as its language was the ultimate alternative computing platform. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation

michrassena 9y ago
I knew that sounded familiar. There's a thread here from last year, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12995277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12995277 Includes some interesting stuff.

mark-r 9y ago

According to your links, the Oberon was based on a single-chip NS320xx processor, not bit-slice - that was its predecessor, the Lilith. By the time Oberon was started, bit-slice processors were obsolete. Integrated CPU chips were able to beat them on price, speed, size, and power consumption.